


Same Song, Different Verse

by brightly_lit



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, mini!chesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-27 03:46:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/657713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightly_lit/pseuds/brightly_lit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>PG-13 for violence, death, off-page sex, and language.  Basically, it's like an episode, only with more cursing.</p>
<p>This is a long coda to Season 4 episode The Rapture that takes place in an imaginary version of season 8 (sans Castiel insanity), and will have ramifications, well ... forever.  Castiel broke a promise to Jimmy, and enlists Sam and Dean to help him try to make it right.  </p>
<p>One of the many things I love about Supernatural is that it can be angsty and hilarious at the same time, and I tried to maintain that tone in this fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Same Song, Different Verse

“Dean, I need your help.”

Dean looked at Sam and rolled his eyes. “Oh, boy, here we go,” he muttered to his brother, then put the cellphone to his lips again. “Okay, what is it?”

“Meet me in the basement of the church you just passed.” Cas hung up. Dean was really going to have to give him a few lessons on phone etiquette.

“Um, we’re kind of busy right now,” Sam said testily when Dean told him what Cas had said.

“Don’t you think we owe him?” Dean replied, outrage creeping into his tone, as if he himself hadn’t ignored Cas too many times, after everything he’d done for them ... and paid the price.

“Fine,” Sam said, like he always did.

 

They didn’t see what Dean expected to see when they walked into the basement of the church. He’d been ready for anything--angels, demons, monsters. Instead, Cas stood behind a very young woman, blond and pretty, only with the coldest, hardest look Dean had ever seen on anyone’s face but his own. He and Sam fanned out uncertainly, eying the girl. “Okay,” said Dean, “what’s up?”

Cas looked down with an expression Dean had come to recognize as the way he expressed shame. “I, uh ... while I was ... otherwise occupied during the last couple of years, I ... broke a promise I made, a very important promise. I need you to help me rectify it.”

Dean stepped forward a little. “What promise?”

“Oh, my God,” Sam said suddenly. “Is that your daughter? I mean, Jimmy’s daughter?”

Was Dean the only one who heard the slight grating in Cas’s voice that indicated how difficult this was for him to say? “Yes. This is Claire.”

“What--?” Dean began, but stopped himself before he finished the sentence the way he was going to: ‘--happened?’ What happened to her? Four years ago, she had been a normal, well-adjusted 15-year-old. Now, everything in her dress, posture, and attitude screamed ... something. Actually, if Dean didn’t know better, he’d say she looked like a hunter.

Cas took a long time choosing his words, as he often did. “Claire ... as you know, is a vessel, my particular vessel being of great interest to demons and angels alike. After Jimmy relinquished his body to me and we let his wife and daughter go, I suppose we assumed they would be safe, but they ... weren’t. His wife Amelia was murdered last year. Claire survived--I’m not certain how--and ....”

“... And she became a hunter,” Sam finished softly.

“Same song, different verse,” Dean said. How many times they’d seen it.

“Yes,” said Cas. “But she is young and on her own and requires protection--”

Claire snorted. Cas had put a hand on her shoulder as he spoke, which she now shook off. “Get your mitts off me, freak. You took my dad, but you’ll never get me.”

“I don’t want you, Claire,” Cas said gently. “Your father gave himself to me so that I would never have to.”

“How do ya like that?” she said mirthlessly. “You think angels are all about protecting you, and instead they ride you harder than the biggest guy on the cell block.”

Cas looked down, pained, and said nothing.

Claire looked up at Dean with what he guessed he would call excitement, though devoid of any of the joy that would imply. “You never said yes, did you,” she said, “no matter what they did to you.” Dean nodded. She looked at Sam with even greater interest. “And Dumbasstiel here tells me you managed to shake off Luc, take control again.” 

Sam nodded slightly. “I guess you could say that.”

“How’d you do it?” she asked, with keen interest.

“There will be plenty of time for questions,” said Cas, stepping away as if ... as if leaving her with Sam and Dean?!

“When?” Dean grunted sharply. “When will there be time for questions, Cas?”

“In your time together, as you ... look after her.”

“No no no,” Dean said, at the same time Sam said, “Wait a minute, you can’t just expect us to--” and Claire was saying shrilly, “I don’t need ‘looking after’!”

“Hey hey hey, Cas, whoa, can we talk about this first?” He managed to get Cas down the hall as Sam, keeping his distance, engaged Claire in some soothing conversation. “Are you crazy?!” he hissed under his breath, so Claire didn’t hear him. “You think anyone’s ‘safer’ with me and Sam?!”

“Safer than on her own. Her training as a hunter is ... spotty at best. You two are widely regarded as the best hunters in the nation, if not the world.”

“How ‘bout she stop being a hunter, huh? Ever think that might make her a little safer?”

“She seems to have made her choice, and in any case, hunter or not, she is perpetually in danger.”

“She’s your daughter; you protect her!”

“I am really ... not in any position to be able to at the moment.”

“Well, for how long?!” Dean said.

Cas looked off into the distance, and even in the fluorescent basement light, his eyes were shockingly blue. “As long as you can keep her alive,” he said sorrowfully.

“Wait, what?” Dean said, alarmed.

Cas turned in that deliberate way that made you know he wasn’t really human. “I made more enemies among the angels than friends. Claire is the last of her line. If they can kill her and destroy my current vessel, they will succeed in essentially relegating me to heaven, where I’ll be far easier to subdue and possibly imprison, as they did Lucifer.”

“Come on. You said it runs in families. Didn’t Jimmy have brothers or cousins or something?”

“They’ve been systematically murdered. Claire is the last.” He turned to face Dean straight-on, which was rare. He only did it when he was feeling something deeply, or when he wanted to emphasize the importance of what he was about to say. “She must be a skilled hunter if she is still alive. She will be useful to you and Sam. She prides herself on being self-sufficient; I doubt she will cause you trouble. Please. Please, Dean. If you can’t do it for me, then perhaps, as a fellow human, as a fellow vessel, you will find it in your heart to do it for Claire, or for Jimmy, or for--”

Man, when Cas wanted to lay on the guilt, he didn’t hold back. Dean said quickly just to shut him up, “Okay. But no promises. I mean, me and Sam, sometimes we have a hard enough time keeping ourselves alive. All I can say is we’ll do our best.”

“That is all I can ask.”

 

Well, at least he wasn’t lying when he said she was self-sufficient--a little too self-sufficient, actually. She refused to sleep in the hotel room with them; she slept in the Impala instead. She never asked for food, and when Sam and Dean realized she was never going to, for the first time in their lives, they made sure everyone got three squares a day. The only thing she was difficult about was her guns, freaking out if anyone but her touched them or even if she didn’t have enough of the cleaning product she preferred.

Cas wasn’t lying when he said she’d be useful, either: as a hunter, she was as relentless and stony as Sam was when he was without his soul, if too reckless for Dean’s taste. Better yet, she could kill angels by the dozen--literally: they came for her in sixes or twelves, and he and Sam only killed one each on a good day; she got all the rest. He couldn’t figure out how she did it; they would appear beside her with the angel blade already in their hearts.

They asked her how she’d become a hunter. She answered remarkably uninformatively. It seemed like she’d found some cache of lore much like Bobby’s collection of books and papers, left behind by a hunter who was there for some reason when her mother was killed--right in front of her, along with the hunter. “I kept expecting my da--Assholel to show up, but he never did,” she said impassively, “and they just--” she made a squishing sound effect “--killed her. Dead.” She stared through the floor of the Impala for like an hour after that with no expression on her face. Dean and Sam shared a brief glance and said nothing for the rest of the drive.

One night, they were zeroing in on a werewolf they’d been hunting for a couple of days. They cornered it in its house. Claire went straight to the basement before Sam and Dean had finished checking out the upstairs--like she always did, even though if she could just hold her horses for two minutes she’d have all the backup she needed. Sam and Dean dashed down the stairs when they heard the growling and crashing. Dean got to the bottom of the steps, gun raised, just in time to see that the werewolf wasn’t the mom or the dad like they’d thought; it was the kid. He and Sam looked at each other. Dean lowered his gun. 

The werewolf rushed Claire. At first Dean thought she too was having second thoughts about killing a kid, though her expression was as blank as ever, but if she didn’t do it, it was going to gut her. He raised his gun again swiftly, but at this angle, he wouldn’t be able to hit it in the heart. When it was two feet away, she pulled the trigger. Its momentum carried it forward, and she barely sidestepped it, its teeth at her neck. Sam ran to her. “Are you all right?” he gasped.

“Did it get you?” Dean demanded. “Did it bite you?”

“If it was already dead, would it still turn her?” Sam asked anxiously.

“I don’t know,” said Dean grimly, but Claire wasn’t paying any attention to the conversation; she was peering consternedly in the dim light at her gun. For practically the first time, Dean saw some expression on her face. She made a noise of dismay.

“Look at this!” She showed them her gun. As often happened with werewolves, the pierced heart had splattered her with blood; the entire right side of her face was pure red with it, as was the side of her gun. “I’ll never get all of this out of the seams!” she wailed. “Do you think it’ll rust if I soak it?”

Sam and Dean stared at her for a long moment, baffled, then glanced at each other briefly, and Dean saw his own troubled expression mirrored on Sam’s face. Dean turned her to face him, examining her neck. He wiped away some of the blood with his sleeve. He didn’t see a wound. “Claire, answer me! Did it bite you?”

“Nah,” she said, still poring over her gun.

The nerves of the hunt, robbed of the catharsis of personally making the kill, undercut by Claire’s dismissive attitude, finally got to him. “You shouldn’t let ’em get so close before you pull the trigger!” he exploded. 

“Yeah,” Sam backed him up. “If you missed, best case, you’d end up kibble.”

“Yeah, or it might have turned you!”

Claire smiled that mirthless smile she only trotted out when she’d killed something. “Whatever. You guys would’ve put me down if it did,” she said, carefully wiping her gun with the dead kid’s pantleg. She glanced up at Dean expressionlessly. “Right?”

 

Something similar happened a few nights later, and then a few days after that, when Sam and Dean ran to her side to help her when she was down instead of going after the ghoul they were hunting, she yelled at them. “What the fuck?!” she hissed. “You just let it get away?”

“You were hurt,” Sam said, bewildered.

“So?”

“So, we didn’t know how badly,” said Dean.

“So?”

“So, we had to help you!” Dean barked.

“Why?” she said, for all the world like they were making no sense. 

“Because you could have died!” said Sam.

“So, you get the ghoul, then come back and see if I’m still alive,” she said, shaking her head at them like they were idiots--and they were idiots, Dean wasn’t going to disagree with that, but he’d never been called an idiot for something like this. She tapped her head. “You need to start thinking logically.”

The next day, as they watched her walk into the gas station convenience store from where they sat in the Impala, Sam sighed sadly and said, “She’s broken.”

Dean tried not to think about it. He and Sam had let Amelia and Claire go that day four years ago. Tons of people they’d saved were still technically in danger; what were they going to do, become babysitters? Amelia and Claire had lives they wanted to get back to. They had a right to them. Still, Dean had known in his heart that letting them go was stupid. He guessed he figured Cas would look out for them. To be honest, even when Cas was going nuts going after the souls from purgatory, and then was gone and presumed dead for months, Claire and Amelia hadn’t even crossed Dean’s mind, though they should have. They should have.

 

The only conversations Claire ever participated in were about guns or angels. They did indeed have plenty of time to talk, together almost 24/7, and Claire asked Sam detailed questions about how he’d overcome Lucifer.

“What was it like, to be possessed by him?” she asked, leaning over the backs of their seats so her head was between his and Sam’s.

Sam glanced at Dean out of the corner of his eye. This was something he’d never told Dean, and Dean could tell he didn’t want to talk about it now, either, but Claire so seldom got really interested in something, it was hard to refuse her. “Uh ... well, terrifying and helpless, having to watch and not being able to do anything. I mean, I thought I could fight him, but as soon as he was in there, I saw how stupid I’d been to think that.” He chuckled nervously. “It wasn’t all bad, I guess. He didn’t destroy me like Raphael did to his vessel; he tried to talk to me sometimes. He was more interested in, uh, talking me over to his side, I guess, than just steamrollering me.” He glanced at Dean again. Dean carefully kept his gaze forward and his expression neutral. He’d never known any of this. He’d preferred to think Sam was unconscious for most of it, like when he was possessed by Meg. Sam had to be aware for all of that? He couldn’t bear to think of all the things that had happened to his little brother, that Dean hadn’t been able to protect him from. “And powerful. So much power.”

“Yeah, not me. My stupid angel is a limp-dick nobody,” she grumbled, thumping back against the backseat.

“Could be worse,” Dean offered. “Could be a douchebag like Michael. Cas is pretty cool.”

“Fuck you,” said Claire. Dean only smiled. He couldn’t blame her for feeling like that. Cas had ruined her life, no doubt about it. “But you did finally take back control, right, Sam? How’d you do it?”

Sam didn’t look at him this time, but somehow that felt even more awkwardly intimate; Dean cleared his throat uncomfortably. “It was ... a lot of things. Cas was there, Bobby was there, and Dean, the Impala, just ... lots of things,” he finished unhelpfully. Why did Dean get the feeling he’d have said a lot more if Dean hadn’t been sitting there listening?

“So,” Sam said, turning to her with interest, “what’s it like to have Cas, uh ... in you?,” he asked, eying Dean, looking for the infantile smirk he knew he’d find on his face. He wasn’t disappointed. “You said yes to him once.” 

“For like five minutes,” she said, rolling her eyes, but she answered. “Freaky and gross. Like you said: you just watch. You’re there, but you’re not the one in control anymore. But yeah, powerful.” She turned to Dean. “How’d you say no?”

“I just decide I want to say it, and the word comes out,” Dean said breezily, and was rewarded with a smack on his arm. “Nah, uh ... there was ... there was a time I might have said yes, if Cas hadn’t saved the day.” Sam looked away carefully, out the passenger-side window.

“How’d they get ya?” she asked knowingly, like she was well aware of the dirty tricks angels liked to play, even though he was sure Cas had never done anything like that to her. Then again, in her short life, she’d already met, and killed, more angels than Sam and Dean had ever seen.

“They basically killed Sam. They were always using us against each other. You’re lucky, that you ....” He trailed off. She wasn’t lucky that she didn’t have someone they could use against her, because it meant she had no one. There were very few times in his life Dean felt like one of the luckiest bastards around. This was one of them. He’d never had to say yes. He didn’t have angels trying to kill him all the time. His dad wasn’t still around talking like a robot like her dad was, whatever love and care he’d had for her now absent, swept away in the remote personality of the being who’d destroyed her life and broke every promise he’d ever made, letting her mother die right in front of her. He had Sam. He’d always had Sam. They lived however they wanted, went wherever they wanted, did whatever they wanted, and they were still happy to be alive. Yep, he had it pretty damn good. 

 

Dean wasn’t sure if she actually had a deathwish or if she literally didn’t care whether she lived or died as long as she made her kill, but her recklessness finally caught up with her. She was only half conscious and the whole front of her shirt was soaked with blood by the time they got to her. She kept gesturing in the direction the shifter ran as Sam bundled her up, murmuring reassurances. She caught Dean’s eye, and gestured again. He shook his head at her.

The doctors weren’t sure she would live, she’d lost so much blood, plus the concussion and the internal injuries; she’d drooled blood down Sam’s neck the whole way to the hospital. They prayed, and Cas even turned up, but he only stood over her while she was unconscious, looking melancholy; he didn’t heal her or anything. When Dean demanded to know why he wouldn’t, he said sadly, “She won’t let me.”

“’Let’? What do you mean, ‘let’?” Dean hissed.

“As a vessel must consent to allowing her angel to come inside, so must she consent to healing, and she won’t.”

“Well, why not?” Dean demanded.

“She will consent to nothing when it comes to me,” Cas murmured, not looking sad in the way he should--more defeated and self-pitying, like he was calculating how this would impact his strategy. Dean looked at Claire and was suddenly glad Cas was almost never there. It definitely sucked to lose your dad, Dean knew that, but it would suck exponentially more for him still to be around and not see you as anything but a pawn for his machinations. No wonder Claire hated him so much; it was probably the only defense she had against not being able to help loving the person she still must, in some part of her mind, think of as her father. Her last living family member. John Winchester wasn’t up for world’s greatest dad, despite what the mugs Dean bought him for Christmas three years running when they were kids might suggest, but at least he was always ... himself. 

They were able to take her home after three days, and then only because the hospital staff was finding inconsistencies in the insurance information and were getting nervous they’d never pony up, so they let them take her home, as long as they followed a long list of instructions.

Sam did all the nursing. He did more than that, actually; he sat by her bed reading her books all day. Dean thought she must be going crazy with all the babying, but she just laid there and listened, never saying anything.

“What’s with all the baby books, Sam?” Dean finally asked. He was reading her books Sam tore through when he was six: Charlotte’s Web and The Black Stallion and Choose-Your-Own-Adventures. He knew he’d gotten the books from the local library, but he figured they had to have stuff teenagers would like. Dean had been half tempted to buy her porn mags; that’s what he’d want to look at if he was laid up when he was nineteen.

Sam glanced back at Claire, and seeing her staring out the window, looking relatively contented, pulled Dean into the hall. Once they’d realized they’d be grounded a while until she got back on her feet, they’d rented a tiny house, which was actually pretty great, Dean had to admit: the same bed every night, a fridge to keep food in. ... They didn’t even have to keep setting up maps and reference materials on walls and tables in a new hotel room every night; they spread out everything they had on this shifter (plus something else that seemed to be brewing about fifty miles away) all over the livingroom and could just add to it as they came upon new information, which made tracking way easier. They couldn’t leave Claire alone now, helpless as she was; angels would come and kill her ... but maybe some night, if Sammy thought he could handle things here, Dean was thinking he’d go back and finish the shifter job. Still, it had just about gutted the most ruthless hunter he knew. Every time he almost went after it, he decided he should wait until Sam could come with him. A dead hunter was a useless hunter, which Claire had never seemed to fully grasp.

“I’ve been doing some research, Dean,” Sam said softly, so Claire wouldn’t overhear. He got his laptop and pulled up some website about child psychology. “When Cas first took her dad, Claire was basically just a kid. When someone’s traumatized, they tend to regress, which helps them heal ... but Claire was fighting for her life, so she never got to. There’s research that suggests if you kind of start all over, lead them back through their childhood and get them through it without anything real traumatic happening, they can heal. Maybe ... maybe we can unbreak her. I mean, since ....”

“... We helped break her in the first place?” Dean said brusquely, and Sam didn’t object. “Great plan, Sam, except what makes you think she isn’t gonna be traumatized again? The angels must be up to something, you know that’s the only reason they haven’t been back. They were coming like clockwork before this.”

“Yeah, well, if I don’t try, she’s going to end up getting killed one way or another.” So Sam had seen it, too, the way she threw herself at that shifter like she really didn’t care as long as it got got. “And I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the idea of Cas stuck without a vessel, for him or for us. I mean, if he ever had to get out of Jimmy’s skin for some reason, and Jimmy was killed ....”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Dean. “She’ll never say yes.”

“Yeah, but if she lives, if she heals ... maybe someday she’ll have a life, and a family, and ....”

“Squeeze out a few new vessels? Jesus, Sam.”

“Look, I’m just saying, if she can get better, that would be a good thing--for everybody. Everybody, Dean.” Dean frowned and wandered back out of the hall into the livingroom, such as it was. They needed to focus on getting Claire back on her feet. Keeping her alive was all Cas had asked them to do, all they had agreed to. The girl was there, she needed help and protection, and that’s what they were doing. They couldn’t afford to start thinking about how much it might benefit them if they steered Claire--in her state of perpetual, heart-rending vulnerability--to do things that might benefit him and Sam. That was the way angels thought, not people. Not him and Sam, anyway. 

Nothing had ever seemed as sick to Dean or felt as awful as the idea of saying yes to Michael, even if it could have saved the world. That was, literally, a fate worse than death, especially hearing the way Sam and Jimmy had described what it was like. When it came to Claire saying no, Dean supported her 100% ... but what about Cas? What about his future, for the eternity he would hopefully go on existing after Sam and Dean were long gone? Wasn’t that pretty important, too? Claire could kill a few monsters, but Cas, however calculating he might be, was a truly good person, all the way down, and powerful enough to do something with it. He could do more to take care of humanity than Dean and Sam could ever hope to, no matter how long they lived. And Sam, in there working so hard to put back together something the angels seemed determined to break, which felt way too close to way too many things angels and demons and monsters and fathers had already done to Dean--and to Sam, too .... It was time for a beer. Nope, time for a few.

 

Claire healed physically, but as a hunter, suddenly she was useless. They couldn’t leave her behind at the house, but she freaked out so much whenever they tried to hunt something--screaming, running toward it or away from it or off in some random direction, shooting her gun at anything and everything--that they pretty much had to give up hunting completely. Then the nightmares started, her screaming “NO!” at the top of her lungs until he and Sammy ran in there and were able to wake her up. Even then, sometimes, it was like the dream didn’t go away; Dean could tell she was still seeing it long after she realized only Sam and Dean were there.

“Why is this happening?” Dean demanded in the hallway, more shaken than he wanted to let Sam see, after they finally got her back to sleep. “I thought your regression stuff or whatever was supposed to be making her better!”

“I think it is; she’s just got a lot of stuff she’s never had a chance to deal with, bad things that happened to her ....”

“If this is getting better, what does getting worse look like?” he said, trying hard to sound a little less hysterical. “I mean, seriously, Sam, how much worse can it get?”

Sam shrugged hopelessly. “Dead. That’s where she was headed.”

“Look, this psychology or whatever, it isn’t working! There is no psychology for people like us, angel vessels and hunters and pawns of the powers that be; we’re not like anybody else.”

“But they had videos on that site, of kids--little kids, Dean--acting just like her, all cynical and defensive and snide. If a kid doesn’t have a chance to be a kid, they can act like a grown-up, but they’re dying on the inside. They have no sense of self, they’re socially maladjusted, they usually end up some kind of addict, they’re reckless with a deathwish .... I mean, they had videos of six-year-olds who were like that, and when they started letting them be kids, when it was safe for them to, they were able to act like little kids again.”

“So what? There’s nothing wrong with that. I was cynical and snide when I was six.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, way too quickly. Dean’s eyes narrowed. 

There was a long, excruciating moment. Finally, Dean spoke with a conviction that made his voice shake. “Maybe it’s better if she doesn’t get ‘better,’ Sam. Maybe that’s the last thing she would ever want.”

“Maybe,” Sam agreed, maddeningly rational, as always. “Or maybe not. Just because it’s not what you would want doesn’t mean it’s not what she would want. We have to let her decide.”

Dean stalked back to his bedroom and flung himself down on his back on his bed, still shaking with rage. It wasn’t fear; it was rage.

 

Sam finally started sleeping in the same bed with her, giant arms wrapped around her, practically mummifying her. It was more efficient for someone to be right there when she started screaming, and eventually, it seemed like just having him there, wrapped around her protectively, kept her calm most nights. Watching them together, more and more it was like Sam really was her dad, though he was only about a decade older than her. Dean guessed she must really badly need a substitute for the creepy, weirdo excuse for a father she had now. Who’d have thought it, but it seemed like Sam would make a good dad. It looked good on him. Dean could tell he felt good about helping her, too, so Sam was happy, and that made Dean happy. They had a pretty happy home, actually, fucked-up as they all were, especially since, for months now, no one had tried to kill them. 

Dean had to admit Claire was finally getting better. It’s not like he’d spent time around a bunch of nineteen-year-olds like Sammy must have at college--he hadn’t even been around Sam when he was nineteen--but from what he did know about it, Dean thought Claire seemed to be acting a lot more like a normal kid her age. She did still have nightmares sometimes, always screaming the same thing, and Dean didn’t get why until one night when he went to check on them, through the door he heard Sam murmuring, “It’s okay, Claire, you never have to say yes. No one can ever make you say yes.”

 

There was definitely something going on in that town fifty miles away: weird signs and weather patterns and disappearances and sightings, but none of it added up to anything they could recognize. They finally decided it couldn’t hurt to take Claire on a little recon trip. Even she was stoked to get out of town for the day. Once they figured out what it was, they could decide whether one of them could take care of it on their own while the other stayed with Claire, or worst case, they could call in some other hunters and get them on the job.

Dean guessed he’d ignored the warning in his gut because he was jonesing so hard to get back to some kind of hunting activity, even something like this. It’s not like he didn’t usually have a bad feeling on a hunt; danger was the job. He’d somehow convinced himself the bad feeling was always this intense and unrelenting. He didn’t put two and two together until the angels--dozens of them--started popping into existence in the empty warehouse that, oh right, his intuition was never this bad unless catastrophe was imminent. His mind ran through the few times it had ever felt like this: when the hellhounds were coming for him, check. When Sam told him he was going to say yes, check. When Cas declared himself their new god, check check check. Why did he never remember this stuff until it was too late to do any good? 

Sam had finally gotten the story on how she was able to kill angels so well: After Cas took her father and then she said yes to Cas briefly that day four years ago, she’d become so sensitized to angelic energy, she always knew when they were coming. They must travel like lightning, from their strike point first, drawing the rest of their bodies and energy to the location they meant to appear, so she could feel them coming, like St. Elmo’s Fire. Thus, they literally did pop into the space beside her with the angel blade already in their hearts.

Not today, though. She was fumbling to get angel blades out of Sam’s weapons duffle, but she was shaking so hard and her eyes were so wide, she was obviously a sitting duck. Trouble was, they all were. In a room like this, swarming with angels, they didn’t stand a chance. Then Cas was there, fighting for them, then--was that Anna?! How could that be?!--defending them, too, then more. Dean realized Cas had been busy while they were taking care of Claire, collecting more allies ... and maybe raising some from the dead. Cas shouted to them to save Claire, and Sam and Dean got her between them, Cas’s allies all around the three of them. Dean got his hands on an angel blade and tossed one to Sam, and they did whatever they could. Even Claire managed to pull herself together enough to waste one angel. 

Dean started thinking they might actually survive ... then he saw something he never had before: The enemy angels held one of their own up against the wall and started cutting into him with an angel blade. Dean wondered wildly if maybe he’d disobeyed and they were punishing him for it then and there, until he saw the calm expression on the angel’s face, the way you imagine kamikaze pilots must have looked as they were about to hit their target. The angels collected the glowing stuff that oozed out and started drawing with it on the wall. 

“No no no!” Dean shouted. He didn’t have any idea what they were doing, but even though there were dozens of the enemy, he suddenly knew this was what that bad feeling was about. All those months when they’d left them alone, this was what they were cooking up, something new and unexpected, something Sam and Dean had no idea how to fight. 

Dean ran toward that group of angels to stop them, but Cas flung him back to Claire’s side without touching him. “No, Dean!” Cas said fiercely. “Protect Claire! I’ll stop them.”

Cas went for them, and Dean saw, too late, that this was exactly what they hoped for. The one who was drawing with the glowing goo smiled to see Cas, and flung a last handful of it against Cas’s chest. Cas looked down, uncomprehending, then looked up as it abruptly became clear. The disbelief on his face made plain the other angels had stooped to something even he never thought them capable of. “No!” he cried--too late, as his vessel disintegrated--no blood, no angel wings painted on the floor, no nothing, just a fine spray of glittery dust that faded instantly like smoke. Dean cried out--he didn’t know what he said--and went for him, but Sam pulled him back, pointing urgently at Claire, who was rising to her feet, staring up into the light that hovered above her, and then Sam and Dean were pressed down to the ground by the force of that presence and the high-pitched noise that accompanied it, covering their ears. Cas, Dean realized--it was Cas. Jimmy was gone, but Cas was still alive ... and circling his vessel, the only one he had left. 

Dean tried to see what he could, shielding his face with his arm and squinting against Cas’s impossible brightness. Claire seemed to be listening intently, nodding a couple of times, her eyes wide. She must be one of the ones who could understand angels in their natural state, and Cas was talking to her--begging, probably, but Dean knew it wouldn’t do him any good. This girl had lived her life to say no to Cas. She was willing--eager--to die so she could refuse him. It had seemed to Dean all the time he knew her that she put a lot of energy into building up the strength to say no to him, if the time should ever come. It seemed like she practiced that every day. If Cas was ruthless enough to try to coerce her into doing it, it wouldn’t matter; Claire had nothing left to lose anymore, not even the body of her dad or the hope of his return. For her, there was no terror to equal that of becoming the new vessel of Castiel ... but then the angel blades were falling from her hands and she flung her arms up into the light. “YES!” she screamed. “YES!”

Dean ducked his head as the noise and brightness reached an intolerable level ... and then it was suddenly gone. Dean and Sam looked around. Dean looked up just in time to see Claire jolt sickly as if she’d been shot, and then Anna’s fingers were on his forehead, and he was somewhere else.

 

She hadn’t sent them far, but by the time they made it back to the warehouse, there was nothing in it, not even the thing they’d painted out of angelic goop. Dean went to the place where Cas had disintegrated, looking for some sign of the angel who had been his friend, finding nothing. “Do you think she sent us to another time?” Sam wondered finally.

Dean took out his cell phone. “Nope,” he grunted, seeing the date and time were just as they should be.

“Do you think Claire made it?” Sam asked, more subdued.

“Nope,” said Dean, sighed heavily, and heaved himself to his feet.

They drove the Impala back to their house, silent the whole way. Sometimes when it was silent like this, Dean spent the whole time wondering what Sam was thinking about, what was going on in that freaky head of his, because it felt like he was a million miles away. Other times, they didn’t talk because they knew they were thinking exactly the same thing. This was one of those times.

Dean walked in the front door, already planning his drinking strategy to help him get through the night, to find Claire standing there in the middle of their livingroom as if waiting for them. He staggered back into Sam, who, after a moment’s shock, pushed past him to her, and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Claire?!” he said, beginning to grin.

“I am not Claire,” she said in a low monotone. Sam dropped his hands and stepped back uncertainly.

Dean would recognize that voice anywhere. Even in another body. “Cas,” he said. The look on her face, eyes deep and wise and compassionate--so different from any of the ways Claire ever looked--told him everything he needed to know. “She said yes,” Dean said flatly. “How’d you make her do it?”

“I did not make her. I asked, and she gave her consent.”

“You managed to talk her into it in, what, five seconds?”

“A great deal of information can pass between an angel in its original state and its vessel in a very brief period of time.”

“She was never gonna say yes,” Sam said, stepping forward, upset. “What did you do to make her do it? What did you say to her?”

“I told her the truth,” she said, with the tiniest hint of ... was that regret?

“... Which was?” Dean asked tightly. Cas had always been his friend--well, almost always, though there was some pretty dark water under that bridge, he guessed--but living with Claire all these months, he couldn’t help coming to see him from her perspective, too, and now that she’d been forced to submit, he was finding it hard not to hate the guy almost as much as she did.

“You saw the spell the angels drew on the wall, out of angelic essence.”

“Yeah, what was that?” asked Dean, stepping forward a little. He didn’t really want to know, but he knew he had to.

“It’s a ... it’s difficult to explain, but I will try. Angels are made of the ... connective energy of the universe, the essence that ties you to your brother, for instance, or that which brings lovers together. Some would call it love, but it’s more than that; it is also the story of humankind, cause and effect, the passage of time: anything that is connected to another through blood, event, or feeling. Such connective energy exists between you and everyone you have ever saved, for instance, and those connections are all of a certain flavor, whereas the connecting energy between you and your father, and his father, and so on, through your whole family tree, is of a different, generally stronger, flavor. The angels found a way to use that energy to destroy all of my remaining vessels at once, utilizing that connective energy. They couldn’t kill Claire; she was too lethal to them. Nor could they kill Jimmy; I had evaded them consistently. So they ... found this way ....” She faltered, then looked up at them with familiar, haunted eyes. “I never ... it is not in an angel’s nature to even be able to conceive of doing something like this, to actually sacrifice one of their .... They must have been quite desperate.” She was plainly deeply disturbed.

She wasn’t the only one. “Yeah, well, the important thing is that they failed and you’re still alive,” Dean said.

“They did not fail,” Cas said, regret plain on her face.

“But you’re still here. Oh, did you bring her back?”

“No, Dean. Jimmy, and Claire ... both are dead.”

“But you--”

“That is why she said yes. I made her understand that since the spell had already been set in motion as soon as the angelic essence touched her father’s body, she had very little time before the spell traced down the remaining connective energy between my vessels and ended her life. The angelic essence that touched me was too powerful for me to save Jimmy’s body, but Anna was able to send me out of the warehouse in Claire’s body before they were able to destroy it with more essence.”

“So ...,” said Sam, “her body was left alive, but her soul was ... huh?”

“She said yes in the few seconds she had to live. Had she not, I would have been left with only a dead body that could not consent. There was only a brief time in which she could give her body to me before she was torn out of it.”

“So, wait a minute, are you saying she’s not in there with you?” Dean demanded.

“That is what I am saying. The souls of both Claire and Jimmy are together at last ... in heaven.”

Dean tried to get past the blow he felt at the news, but he couldn’t seem to. It felt like he’d been socked in the heart. Sam, ever the more level-headed one, questioned Cas for more details, but Dean could hardly follow the conversation. Claire ... she was gone? This morning, she was all stoked about a roadtrip, and tonight, she was dead, because of some stupid recon he and Sam wanted to do? A trap the angels had lured them into? That was her life?: fucked over by angels since she was just a kid, basically destroyed, then finally forced to do the thing she feared more than anything in the world in the two seconds before she was killed by a freakin’ spell, nothing she could fight or even anticipate, just completely screwed out of everything right up ‘til the very end? 

He needed to punch something, now, but there was nothing to punch ... except that goddamn shifter that had put her in the hospital. Dean wished with all his heart that Sam hadn’t tried to fix her; at least she wouldn’t have had to go through all that before she finally lost her life. That made him want to punch Sam, really a lot, but he knew from experience that that would only make things worse. He grabbed the map of where they’d decided the shifter’s lair must be, picked up the weapons duffle, and headed for the door without a word.

He felt Sam’s baffled gaze on him, and Cas’s impassive one. “... Dean?” said Sam.

“Don’t say anything to me, Sam. I mean it, not one word.” Sam was a smart kid; he didn’t say a thing.

 

That shifter was a brute, all right, but Dean finally ganked it. Actually, the beatdown it gave him first made him feel better somehow. Dean dragged into the house in the middle of the night, groaning quietly, and cleaned off all the blood in the bathroom before heading for his bed ... only to find Sam in it. Huh, weird. So Dean headed for Sam’s bed ... only to find Claire in it. Cas. Asleep. Much weirder; angels don’t sleep. He thought about getting in there with her, but asleep, Cas looked too much like Claire, and that seemed wrong on so many levels--because she was just a kid, because Sam had been sleeping with her all this time even if it was nothing like that, because she was Cas/Jimmy’s daughter and on some level he would expect to get his ass kicked if he tried, because now she was dead .... He went back to the bed Sam was in, but there was no way he could fit in the bed with that monster sprawled all over it ... so he settled down on the couch, which was still way more comfortable than the Impala, and even some of the hotel beds he’d slept in, and went to sleep.

In the morning, Cas ate breakfast with them--really fucking weird, since angels don’t eat, either. Dean waited for Cas to disappear so he could ask Sam what the hell was going on, but after breakfast she went and stood around in the livingroom, looking idly at their maps and lore and printouts. 

“So,” said Sam, sitting down at the crappy kitchen table with Dean. “I guess ... I guess now that Claire’s ....” He looked sad. “Anyway, uh ... we could move on, if you wanted, get back to hunting. What do you want to do? I don’t think Cas will be in the way ... any more than he’s ever been--I mean, she.” Sam chuckled softly, subdued. “Are you having as much trouble with the pronoun thing as I am? Weird, that he’s suddenly a girl.”

“Yeah, tell me about it--but what? ‘In the way’?”

“I mean, I don’t think she’s gonna be much help, but ... shit, maybe we have to always be with her like we were always with Claire, since she can’t defend herself very well now.”

“Wait, what? What the hell are you talking about, Sam?”

“You know, because she’s ... were you even listening last night?”

“No,” Dean said belligerently. “Kinda had a lot on my mind.”

Sam looked troubled, like he was really unhappy Dean didn’t already know this, like he thought Dean wouldn’t take the news well. Dean scowled at him. “Uh ... well, since the soul is gone ... basically, she’s human now. She’ll age and everything. And ...,” he lowered his voice, “I don’t think she has any powers anymore, either.”

“Is that why she’s not disappearing?” Dean barked gruffly.

Cas must have overheard them; she came into the kitchen where they sat and took the third chair. “Yes,” she said.

“So, what, you’re just gonna live with us now?” Dean said, barely even bothering to try to hide his hostility. It hadn’t exactly been fun to live with Claire, but he’d gotten used to it--even come to like it--but he was pretty sure Cas would make the world’s shittiest roommate. Cas was hard enough to take in small doses.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” Cas said, with such vulnerable sincerity, Dean could only subside, glaring. “And ... I don’t know how to live ... as a human.”

“Well, don’t look at me!” Dean said, since they both were. “I’m not gonna hold it for ya.”

“Hold what?” Cas asked innocently.

Sam just smiled faintly and shook his head. “Dean, I already covered the, um ... basics with her, so you don’t have to, and ....”

“Sure about that? You’re kinda ripe, Cas.”

Cas looked down quickly at herself, confused.

“... And Cas is smart; I’m sure she’ll be able to figure things out pretty fast ....”

“Wait a minute,” Dean said, starting to realize all the implications. “This is the only vessel Cas has now, and if the soul is never coming back, does that mean we’re gonna be stuck with her forever?! She’s gonna die eventually, anyhow! What’s even the point of all this, if--”

“I must procreate,” Cas said, gazing up at some distant point through the ceiling with those warm, glowing eyes, rather dreamily. 

Dean looked at Sam, deeply alarmed, and Sam kept his eyes carefully averted. “You knew about this?” Dean demanded, aghast.

“No, she hadn’t said anything, but ... I kinda figured that was the plan ....”

“Claire’s body is useless without her soul in it,” said Cas.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Dean demanded angrily.

“How many times have you been told now, Dean? Souls are power. Why do you think angels are so much more powerful than demons, which can possess a dead body even more easily than a living one? Why do you think we require consent? When a vessel consents, it becomes possible for the angel to utilize the power of that soul. Now, with Claire gone, I have no more power than a demon,” she sighed.

“At least demons can throw people around,” Dean said rudely.

Cas lifted her hand, and with a flick, lifted him out of his chair and threw him back against the wall, before dropping him back down to his feet dispiritedly. “Yes,” Cas said depressedly, “that’s all the power I have anymore, it seems.”

“Thanks a lot, Cas,” Dean grunted. She’d managed to re-bruise all kinds of stuff. 

“Claire gave her body to me so that I could perpetuate my line, so that I could ensure there would be vessels in the future as I may come to need them.”

“She would never do that! She hated you!”

“We came to a far greater mutual understanding than any we had ever had before, during those moments when we were one. She understands my needs, Dean, and she understood her place in the grand scheme of things. I have her full blessing to do as I wish, and as I must, for the good of humanity.”

“Wow. Every time I think my life couldn’t get any weirder ...,” Dean muttered.

“I suppose you may as well decide amongst yourselves which one of you will father my child.”

Dean jumped out of his chair like it had bitten him on the ass. Even Sam seemed stunned. Dean turned to Sam. “Please tell me this is some hell-induced flashback and I’m hallucinating. Please, Sam,” he begged.

Cas turned to Sam. “How does a human ripen, and is it undesirable for them to do so?”

Sam managed to stutter out something about taking a shower, and Cas left the room, thank the good lord. Sam and Dean very carefully didn’t look at each other. “You realize, this is not happening,” Dean barked roughly. “We are not about to have sex with Cas.”

“No, of course not,” Sam agreed shakily. 

“Cas is just gonna have to go out and find someone else to do it.”

“Right. Sure.”

“How can he even ...,” Dean fumed, then turned on Sam, demanding, “You’re okay with this?”

“Do I look like I’m okay with this?”

“Okay, then,” Dean said, mollified, and sat down, jumping out of his chair again when Sam said, “But would he even know how to take care of a baby?”

“What the-- Sam! No,” Dean said determinedly. “We are not about to become three men and a baby.”

“Well, he’s ... not exactly a man, anymore ....”

“No!”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, but Dean hated his tone, like he was considering it logically, when anyone could see logic didn’t belong anywhere near this discussion. “It’s just that, who else but us could keep his ... progeny safe? And you know if he’s pregnant, he’s not going to have anywhere else he can go--”

“She!” Dean screamed. “If SHE’S pregnant! Clearly Cas is just going to have to wait to have a baby until she’s happily married to some dude.”

There was a long silence, during which Dean valiantly resisted threatening Sam with bodily harm, knowing he was sure to hate whatever he was about to say. “But ... who would marry him? I mean, he’s gonna be lucky if he can have a one-night stand. He couldn’t even get laid in a brothel.”

“SHE!” Dean shrieked. “And there are guys who’ll have sex with anyone, Sam. Trust me: ANYONE.”

“And ... these are the guys you want to have fathered the kid we’re probably going to have to raise?” Seeing the look on Dean’s face, Sam said, “I know, I know. But, you know ... dad did it. Raising a kid, even when you’re a hunter ... it’s not the end of the world.”

“We are NOT going to do it like dad did it!” Dean said, more sharply than he ever said anything, feeling like something was rising up in his chest, about to electrocute him.

“No, of course not. We could ... you know ... do it right.”

Dean resisted the almost overpowering urge to go for his gun. Guns were the only thing that usually helped when he felt like this. “Sam, how did we get from ‘Cas is human and has to shower now’ to ‘we’re about to raise a kid’? Gotta be some kind of hallucination,” Dean muttered to himself. “Can’t be a djinn, or this sure as hell wouldn’t be my happy fake life.” Still, he grabbed at his neck, feeling for a needle. “What was that--what’s that other thing that makes you hallucinate--it’s a wraith!” he shouted triumphantly. “Or possibly a Starship. Sam, all we’ve gotta do is kill it, and all of this will go away!” he cried excitedly.

Sam looked at him with pity. Oh, no! Somehow Sam didn’t realize that they had to be hallucinating! He had to convince him.

 

They weren’t hallucinating. In fact, after they refused Cas’s request and watched her walk out the front door and proposition the first guy she encountered on the street (their friendliest neighbor, no less--a devout Christian with a large family), Sam had, most reluctantly, agreed to do it. “For the future,” Sam kept repeating to himself, dissociating. “For all of humanity. Come on, you can do it, Sam.”

“What about artificial insemination?” Dean suggested, alarmed.

“With what money?” Sam retorted. “It costs thousands of dollars for each attempt, and it usually fails.”

“Then how ’bout a turkey baster?”

“Cas ... Cas said ... something about the lord frowning upon the lack of intimacy between a man and woman, like ‘a child is conceived out of love,’ or ... something. He won’t do it that way.”

Dean shook him by the shoulders. “There’s gotta be another option! Think, Sammy, think!” 

Then Cas came into the room, looking at a thermometer with a beatific smile on her face. “I believe I may be ovulating. This is the opportune moment. Sam?” She dragged Sam down the hall. The last look Dean got of his face left the overwhelming impression of a man being dragged to the chopping block.

It was all moot anyway, as Sam came scrambling down the hall two minutes later, huge-eyed, buttoning up. He grabbed his coat and the Impala’s keys. Dean quirked an eyebrow. “Sam?”

“I’m leaving,” Sam said breathlessly. “I’m not coming back. Ever again. Sorry, Dean.” He looked back toward the hallway, from which Cas called after him, confused. Sam ran out the door, slamming it behind him, and the Impala started and peeled out less than eight seconds later, pretty much a new record.

Cas emerged from the hallway. “What did you do to him?” Dean asked incredulously.

Cas frowned quizzically at the door from which Sam had departed. “I did nothing harmful or unkind.” 

Her eyes turned expectantly to Dean. “I am ovulating.”

“I’m happy for ya.”

“I ... I may not have long before the angels find me and destroy this vessel.”

“Best case, you’d still need a good nine months.”

“Yes, but ten is ... worse. Each extra month makes my chances of success that much less likely ....”

“Look, if you think you’re talking me into this, you’ve got another think coming.”

“This surprises me.”

Dean knew he wasn’t going to like this. “Why?” he said coolly.

“When it comes to sex, you have traditionally taken advantage of any opportunity based on convenience, access, and willingness of a female partner, all of which apply in this case.”

“Yeah .... No.”

Cas tilted her head. “Do you find this body unappealing?”

“It’s fine.”

“Then why?”

“Just forget about it.”

“When Claire and I united, I got the impression you shared a great fondness for one another. Was I mistaken?”

“No, I’d say that’s about right. She and Sam were closer, though.”

“Still, Claire loved you. She didn’t give her consent until I told her if she did, I would be more likely to be able to save you and Sam.”

Dean frowned slightly, and the news made it hard for him to breathe for a little while.

“You and Sam were the only males of her acquaintance besides her father, the only men she ever trusted. I am quite certain that if she were able to choose--”

“Cas!” Dean spat discouragingly.

Cas looked thoughtful for a long few seconds. At last, she said, “I am unable to uncover her desires for this body now. But she was aware of my intentions, and she was ... pleased to imagine some part of her living on, carrying her genes to a new generation, hoping her children would know of her and her story. It made her feel perhaps her life was not worthless--”

“CAS!”

“Please tell me why not, Dean.”

Dean glared at her. “Because the last thing anyone needs is another Winchester in the world! We’re freakin’ cursed! Besides, what, is the kid gonna be a vessel for both you AND Michael, if it runs in families? Why would I do that to some poor kid? You see how well it turned out for Claire, and for me, and Sam .... Anyway, who wants my DNA? May as well stamp ‘dumbass loser’ on its forehead. At least Sam’s smart ... and good.”

“You are good, Dean,” Cas said softly.

“Whatever.”

She looked toward the door. “Perhaps that neighbor ....”

Dean jumped off the couch. “No!”

“I have no time to waste. I know, from your human perspective, the minor discomforts of the present situation may seem somehow insurmountable, but if you look at time from beginning to end--”

“Goddammit,” Dean whispered, steeling himself for a long minute or two. Then, at regular volume, he said, “What the hell did you do to Sam?”

Cas looked shocked anew. “I am as flummoxed as you. I only tried to make things easier for him by attempting to appear more ... alluring--”

Dean gasped, and grabbed Cas by the arm. “Whatever you do, don’t do that,” he growled, dragging her down the hallway. “I don’t want to hear a word outta you, do you understand?”

“It is not customary to speak, then?”

“Not when it’s you, because I can picture what it would be like.” He imitated Cas’s preternaturally calm modes of speech: “’Thank you for assisting me in creating a new vessel, Dean. A higher angle is more conducive to conception, Dean.’ Not sexy!” he barked.

“I remember that pornographic movie I watched. I could attempt to imitate--”

“NO! Cas, get on the bed. All the lights will be off, and you don’t say anything, not one word.”

“I could perhaps offer some encouragement--”

“I don’t need encouragement! Just don’t distract me! This is gonna be hard enough already.”

“I am only attempting to help. It seems like ... certain kinds of noises are beneficial to creating a mood--”

Dean growled. “Seriously, Cas, one more word--or sound--and this is all over. If Sam hadn’t taken the Impala, that’s where I’d be, right now, driving as far and as fast as I can, away from you. Nowhere in the world would be far enough, the way I will feel if you do anything--anything! Do you understand me?” He eyed Cas darkly. Cas pressed her lips together, and nodded. “All right,” Dean said. He turned off all the lights, closed the door, and, taking a deep breath, stripped.

 

Dean sent a text to Sam: “Deed done.” Then he took three showers in a row. Then he got drunk, barricaded the door to Sam’s room after harshly cautioning Cas not to come anywhere near him, got in Sam’s bed, and dropped into merciful oblivion. When Sam came home the next day, they left immediately on a four-day hunt after Sam pointed out that if Cas really needed protection, she could pray to Anna. 

There just wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to make Dean forget that experience. Of course, Cas couldn’t keep her mouth shut, and it was even worse than Dean had ever feared. He shuddered every time the memories sprang unbidden to his mind. Angels ... they just didn’t get “sexy.” They were like the anti-sexy. Well, all of them except Anna, but that was because she was human, too. Ugh, Cas. The only thing worse than him lying there like a dead fish was him attempting to participate. “I really hope it worked,” Sam kept saying, and his eyes would get far away and kind of glazed when he said it, both of them trying their hardest not to think about what the future would hold if it hadn’t. “I really hope she was ovulating, and that ... you know ... your boys were ... up to the task.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my ‘boys’!” Dean snapped. “If it didn’t work, it wasn’t me!”

“Oh my God!” said Sam suddenly. “What if--what if she’s infertile?”

That thought was so depressing on so many levels, they stopped talking about it and threw themselves into hunting this monster, so for four blissful days at least, they wouldn’t have to think about Claire or Cas or the future.

Upon their return, Cas and Anna had good news for them: now that the enemy angels had used that spell, the secret was out and everyone had that particular nuke in their arsenal, so they were afraid to attack them so openly again. Consequently, they were willing to begin negotiations, which apparently were going well. Initially upset that they hadn’t succeeded in leaving Cas without a vessel, once they learned he’d been nonetheless rendered essentially powerless, they were even more pleased than if he had reverted to his true form, since stuck on earth, subject to all the limitations of being human, he was even less of a threat. Anna didn’t think it would occur to them that Cas was planning to create himself more vessels--angels just didn’t think in such human terms--but in any case, they probably had months or years to come up with a solution to that particular problem, if it ever did become a problem, by which time the war in heaven might well be over.

“Sure is good to see you again, Anna,” Dean said, trying not to act like a shy little wuss. “How, uh ...?”

Anna smiled at Cas, who listened distantly, gazing at her own stomach. “We’re not sure. It was either Cas, or God. Or both.” She stood up. “Anyway, now that you guys are back to watch over Cas, I have stuff to do. I’ll be around. Oh,” she said, remembering something, then handed a small box to Dean with a smirk. It was a pregnancy test. “Have fun,” she said wickedly, and disappeared.

“Oh, why?” Dean groaned. “Anna, you couldn’t have done it while it was just you two girls? You two angels??” he shouted after her, but it was no use. Actually, angels often heard you and just didn’t make themselves visible, which was probably exactly what was going on here. All the more proof that angels were pure evil. Dean tried to hand off the pregnancy test to Sam, who wouldn’t take it. They had a mostly silent argument over it, which soon devolved into wrestling. This finally attracted Cas’s attention.

“What’s in the box?” she asked.

Dean had really only been wrestling with Sam to pick his pocket. Once he had the Impala’s keys back, he was at the front door in no time flat. “See you guys.” He smiled to himself with a truly satisfying sense of victory, and went out for a burger.

When he returned, Sam had that evil smile he used to flash when he had no soul, and ice shot through Dean. “We waited for you,” Sam said, mock generously, and nodded to Cas, who went into the bathroom, holding the pregnancy test like a royal scepter. He got Sam in a headlock. Sam elbowed him in the ribs, so Dean rushed him and knocked him off-balance onto the couch. Sam got him down onto the floor, knees pinning his elbows, and Dean was just about to throw him off with his legs, when Cas came back out of the bathroom, holding up the pregnancy test.

“I have peed on the stick, and the stick has turned blue,” she announced, eyes brimming with pleasure.

 

“Why do I have to go?” Sam whined as Dean subtly checked him so he stumbled forward down the hospital hallway he was just then trying to back out of.

“Because this baby is just as much yours as mine,” Dean said gruffly.

“How do you figure that?” Sam huffed. “I’m pretty sure a DNA test would point out the flaw in your logic.”

“A: because you were the first one to agree to do Cas, you were just too much of a pussy to go through with it. B: because you’re the one who decided we would raise the thing. And C: because you’re more of a girl than Cas will ever be, and there has to be at least one girl in the room.”

Cas walked along beside them, untroubled by their scuffle, hand on her stomach, where it usually was nowadays, as if trying to use her former powers to get a bead on whatever was in there. “So this ultrasound will show us what the baby looks like?” she said.

“Guess so,” said Dean, holding open the door for her. Why did he do that? He hated when he did that. She wasn’t even showing; she didn’t need his chivalry--not yet, anyway.

“Does it hurt?”

“Nope,” said Sam, helping her up onto the exam table. 

“She can climb onto a table by herself, Sam,” Dean snapped. Maybe it was because she looked like Claire that they were always doing that stuff for her now, but it drove Dean up a wall.

When the doctor came in, he looked startled to see two guys in the room. He’d be a lot more startled if he knew they were all more or less guys, Dean thought with wry amusement. The doctor shook both their hands, obviously wanting to ask, and Sam, the wuss, pointed instantly at Dean. “He’s the father,” he said quickly. Dean shook his head at him.

“Ah, I see. And you ...?”

“I’m his brother,” Sam explained in his innocent way, then the innocence turned false--at least, Dean could see it. “He, uh ... Dean was too scared to come by himself, so I ....” Dean couldn’t slug him right in front of a doctor, so he just glared daggers at him.

“He is my friend,” Cas offered calmly, gazing at Sam, and was that a flare of jealousy Dean felt at the warmth of that look, and the memory that Sam was supposed to be the father? What the--?!

“Oh, okay,” said the doctor easily as he got everything ready. “So you’re comfortable having both of them in the room? Not that we have to unveil too much of you to do this, but ....”

“I have no shame about this body,” Cas said calmly, leaning back, and Dean died a little inside, same as he did when Cas had announced to everyone in the checkout lane at the grocery store that Dean had assisted to create some progeny--in those words--for his “future needs,” when she described everything she’d learned from the pregnancy books Sam bought her in skin-crawling detail to a gaggle of drug dealers in front of the convenience store, and when she cheerfully told a stranger at the gas station that she’d eaten so seldom in her life that she frequently didn’t even know what it was she was craving.

The doctor was obviously given pause by her phrasing, but finally he said only, “Glad to hear it,” and got started. Dean couldn’t make out anything in the fuzzy lines on the monitor, but he heard Sam gasp softly beside him. The doctor moved the thing around on Cas’s stomach a little longer before finally saying with a smile, “Well, I have some big news for you--you’re having twins.”

Dean saw Sam’s big, goofy grin, and he couldn’t understand it. Then Sam stood up, grabbed Dean, and gave him a huge bear hug, and Dean caught his reflection in the monitor, seeing an equally giant grin on his own face. What the hell? 

Cas looked positively suffused with bliss. “Twins,” she breathed.

 

The next day, Dean sat by the river next to the bridge about a mile from their house. He’d been there a while. He heard Sam walk up and sit down beside him on the long dry grass of the slope, stilt-like legs stretched out in front of him easily. Neither of them said anything for a while.

“How’d you find me?” Dean asked impassively.

Sam shook his cell phone at him. “GPS. Turned it on last night, ‘cos I was afraid you might bolt.”

“Thinking about it,” Dean said calmly.

“Yeah. I figured.”

“How’s Cas?”

“I think he’s doing his version of nesting. He isn’t buying baby blankets or car seats; he’s collecting bibles and writing down the names of his favorite angels in various first-and-middle-name combinations.”

“You’ve pretty much given up on calling him ‘she,’ haven’t you?”

Sam shrugged. “Yeah. He’ll always be ... you know, Cas to me.” There it was, that pang at losing ... Jimmy, Dean guessed. He hadn’t ever thought much about the guy--the human who’d given his life to Cas for Claire’s sake, in hopes that she’d be able to live a normal, happy life, alas--but that was how Dean would always think of Cas, too. “So ... what’s going on?” said Sam casually.

Dean didn’t want to talk about it. He never wanted to talk about it. But this ... there wasn’t any way to run away from this, or forget about it, or anything. After the joy of the news yesterday had faded into the reality that there really was new life brewing inside Cas, he’d been haunted by cascading memories, fears, and implications. No matter what he did now, there would be another Winchester in the world--two little Winchesters, like him and Sam. “I dunno, Sam. What have I done? Seriously? Is it all just gonna begin again?”

Sam gazed off into the distance. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I mean, why ...? How could I be that stupid? I tried to say no, Sam, I really did.”

“I know. So did I. I gave in before you did.”

“We really aren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree. I keep going over and over it in my mind, and ... I still don’t know how I could have done anything different. Cas ... I can’t leave him without a vessel, you know? After everything. He’s the only good one left, him and Anna. And Claire, things he told me about what she wanted, how she felt, about us .... Just ... I screwed things up so bad with you when you were growing up, Sammy, and ....” He had to stop, because his throat was getting thick.

“Dean, you were only four years older than me, and just as fucked up, after everything that had already happened to us, and what dad was like .... How were you supposed to know how to raise a kid? You shouldn’t have even had to.”

Dean wiped his eyes, giving fierce thanks that Sam was the only one there who could see him reduced to this. “I don’t wanna ... I don’t wanna fuck up some kid ....”

“Dean--”

“No, Sam, because even if we somehow get our shit together and figure out how to do this-- You know our lives! You know what it’s like! Something’s bound to happen, and ... I don’t want to bring a kid into this, Sammy. I really don’t.”

“Well,” Sam said after a while. “I know I’m glad to be alive, even after everything we’ve been through. Are you?” He turned and watched Dean with frank curiosity, and Dean got the sense he’d been wanting to ask that for a long time.

Dean thought about it. “Yeah,” he said finally, wiping his face again surreptitiously. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

“So ... I guess we’ve got to have faith that everything happens for a reason, and that this--these kids ... you know, are gonna be okay, like us. I mean, if nothing else ... at least they’ll always have each other.”

That was the first thing that had made Dean feel any better about any of this, and he grasped at it like he grasped Sam any time he was going down, and Sam always somehow managed to pull him back up. “Yeah,” he said shakily, starting to be able to breathe again. “Yeah.”

 

“Dean.” Dean rolled over, away from the deadpan voice. He slept with Cas these days. They only had the two beds, and Sam was too freakin’ huge to sleep with. Cas hardly moved all night, and, you know, it was just Cas. Actually, Dean wanted to stay close, just in case something happened and Cas needed help. It wasn’t like Cas was good at being an expectant mother or anything; Dean had been three when Mary got pregnant with Sam, and he’d lived the rest of his life pretty much entirely around other guys, and still, he knew more about pregnancy than Cas did. She sometimes got concerned about some sensation, and typically, either it was something totally normal and human, or something very wrong, and because she’d never had to be human before, she simply couldn’t tell the difference. So Dean wanted to be there, just in case. 

“Dean,” came the voice again, low and resonant. “Dean. Dean.”

Dean finally woke up enough to realize it was Cas, standing in the dark beside their bed, looking at him. Dean rolled over to squint up at her. “Cas? What’s going on?”

“Water flushed in a great torrent out of my body. It’s on the floor now. I don’t want to clean it up, because my abdomen seems to be twitching. I’m afraid it might disturb the fetuses for me to crouch in that position. They have, as you are aware, grown very large within me. Also, I don’t like cleaning. I think you should do it.”

“Wait, what? What?” Dean sat up and turned on the light. Man, Cas was a big as a house. Cas directed his attention to the water on the floor. Dean took in the scene for less than a second before he was on his feet, pulling on a shirt over the jeans he still slept in. He pounded on Sam’s door right across the hall. “Sammy, wake up! It’s time!” 

Dean put his arm around Cas and walked her to the door, grabbing her a coat on the way, then helping her down the steps. Sam came running after them, wide-eyed. He drove while Dean sat close to Cas in the backseat, peppering her with questions. They were almost there before Cas thought to ask, “Where are we going?”

“We’re going to have a baby,” Dean said, as calmly as he could manage. “Well, two babies.”

Cas looked down at herself, then back up at him slowly. “I ... was hoping we were going to the store for pork rinds.”

“We can do that,” Dean said casually. “Sam, store?”

Pork rinds in hand, they arrived at the hospital, where a nurse took one look at Cas and whisked her to a delivery room, Sam and Dean right behind. Oops; maybe they shouldn’t have stopped for pork rinds. There wasn’t time for anyone to throw one or both of them out; the first baby was on its way even before they got a doctor in there. Soon there were three or four doctors and nurses in there, and it was loud and scary and there was no way of stopping this anymore, not like there ever had been. Cas looked uncharacteristically anxious as she met Dean’s eyes. “This is extremely painful,” she informed him.

“I can tell,” Dean said, wincing. Sam was sitting beside her, holding her hand, encouraging her, while Dean stood around feeling useless.

“Perhaps pork rinds will help,” Cas suggested to Dean helplessly. Dean went for the pork rinds--hey, in her position, he’d want them, too--when the sudden flurry of activity and noise behind him heralded the arrival of baby number one, and Dean forgot all about pork rinds and everything else, staring at that tiny living thing he had so carelessly created.

Baby number two was on its heels, the staff was busy, and a nurse, looking around for some place to put baby number one, handed him to Dean. When that weight landed in his arms, he could have sworn he was four years old again. “Sammy?” he called anxiously. “Little help, here?”

“You’re doing fine,” said Sam. Just seeing Sam’s wondering grin, staring at the baby in Dean’s arms, made Dean feel a million times better. Not like he could do this--not that much better--but like he could stand here and hold this thing and probably manage not to accidentally kill it before a nurse finally took it back.

Baby number two came along even faster than baby number one, which they handed to Cas, who took it awkwardly. With shining eyes and a maternal smile, she said, “My progeny.”

Doctors and nurses were making notes, weighing and cleaning off the kids--somehow Dean hated it when they took baby number one out of his arms--and then a cheerful nurse sat down next to Cas with a clipboard. “And what do we want to call the little boy?”

Dean and Sam both looked with interest at Cas. This whole pregnancy thing had been her deal from the first; they’d never discussed names at all. Cas stared through the walls, past the horizon, for a few long seconds, and finally said in her deep monotone, “The first will be called Dean.”

“Dean, okay. Middle name?”

Cas only thought for a second or two. “Jimmy.”

“James,” Sam said quickly.

“Dean James, okay. Last name?”

“Winchester,” Cas said without hesitation. Dean’s face fell and he tried to keep a hold on his increasing heart rate. So close to his own name. This wasn’t right. There shouldn’t be another Dean Winchester. He tried to intervene, but they were already talking about the other baby’s name. “Sam,” said Cas loudly.

“Oh ... kay, uh, Samantha?” the nurse suggested.

“Yes, Samantha,” Sam said quickly, and Cas sat impassively, making no objection, so the nurse wrote that down and asked for a middle name.

“Claire,” Cas said easily.

“Samantha Claire Winchester, that’s pretty,” said the nurse, collected her things, and was already leaving before Dean was able to say a word.

“What the hell, ‘Dean and Sam Winchester’?” Dean gasped as soon as all the doctors and nurses were out of the room. “Why don’t you just name ’em Angel Bait and Monster Fodder?”

“I prefer Dean and Sam Winchester,” Cas said, completely serious.

Dean turned on Sam, who had that new-father glow, which Dean knew he certainly did not share. “You’re okay with this?!”

Sam smiled, all blissed out, and shrugged. “You know, Dean, there are worse things than being us.”

 

Sam was asleep in a chair, Samantha drooling face-down on his chest, also asleep. Cas was also sleeping, baby Dean asleep beside her on the hospital bed, as Dean watched them. Somehow they’d gone from just him and Sam to a family of five in one night. Well, Cas had been there for a while. That house wasn’t going to be big enough for them all for long.

Baby Dean’s eyes opened, and he looked up at the ceiling, like he was thinking about crying. “Hey, there you are,” Dean said quietly as he picked him up and took him back to the chair he’d been napping in earlier that day. He held him just like he had the night before, cradled in his arms, since the kid had survived that. Anyway, no one could look more awkward holding a baby than Cas; Dean hadn’t missed the glances she’d been getting from the hospital staff since the babies were delivered. Despite the fact that Dean and Sam had gotten Cas a super-deluxe insurance card in preparation for this day, they should take off soon, for good measure. Dean just wanted to spend as much time here as possible, where they actually knew how to take care of babies, before the kids had to be in mortal danger from the ignorance of their pathetic set of parents. Still, Sam had been reading parenting books like crazy, and if Cas and Dean weren’t too ham-handed, maybe the kids would survive. 

“Dean, you raised me from the time I was six months old,” Sam kept telling him these past few weeks. “If any one of us knows how to do this, it’s you.”

“Dad was there,” Dean said shortly.

“Yeah, and what good was he?” Sam said brusquely. “And you raised Ben for a year!”

“His mom was there. Anyway, ten-year-olds are easy.”

“What, and babies are hard? They just lie there!”

Dean thought of this, and swallowed back tears a lot, and looked at little Dean, and knew that he would do whatever it took--absolutely whatever it took--to make sure he and his sister made it through okay.


End file.
